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Coach Bill Zernickow guides San Dimas to another CIF football title

San Dimas head coach Bill Zernickow holds-up the championship plaque after defeating Paraclete 20-14 a CIF-SS Mid-Valley Division championship football game at San Dimas High School in San Dimas, Calif., on Friday, Dec. 6, 2013.
(Keith Birmingham Pasadena Star-News)

When Bill Zernickow took over as head coach at San Dimas High School in 2005, the school was looking for some stability and proper leadership at the top of its football program.

Anything beyond that, specifically wins, would simply be gravy given how the previous coaching staff’s tenure came to an end.

Nine seasons later, Zernickow has certainly given San Dimas way more than it bargained for. He’s given it the proud title of being one of the top programs in Southern California.

On Friday night, the Saints beat Paraclete, 20-14, to win the Mid-Valley Division championship. It’s the second CIF championship San Dimas has won under Zernickow’s direction. More impressively, it’s the second championship Zernickow has won with a completely different class of players.

San Dimas’ success hasn’t been about one or two classes worth of talented players. Instead, it’s been about the system. A system that Zernickow put in place that makes it so the names on the back of the jerseys change but the bottom line does not.

San Dimas has made the semifinals, or beyond, every season since 2009. Try finding another program anywhere that can boast the same feat. There are a few — a precious few. San Dimas is now in that rare air.

Zernickow’s system has taken one of the oldest and most basic styles of offense and turned it into something that opposing defenses just cannot stop. Zernickow’s brand of offense has turned several good players into great players.

Joseph Mayorga, an undersized transfer from San Gabriel, is just the latest. Before him there was raw talents like Jake Payton and Nico Barbone. Stardom has also come to players who maybe weren’t as gifted as those above but had exceptional will.

Come one, come all, Zernickow’s system has made stars out of just about anybody whose believed in it. And the wins have certainly followed.

Zernickow’s system has withstood weather (see 2009 championship game upset of Monrovia in a driving rain) and it’s also withstood adversity.

No greater example of that can found than this year’s team. Before the season, Payton decided to transfer out of the program, leaving the team without its marquee player.

Soon after that, and just before the season, the school launched an investigation of Zernickow and his staff after allegations were made that coaches gave players milkshakes in order to help them gain weight.

The school’s investigation found no wrongdoing and the season started. San Dimas promptly went 0-4 against a rugged nonleague schedule. Some wondered whether the Saints would even make the playoffs, let alone get back to the semifinals.

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But through it all, San Dimas kept working Zernickow’s system. By the time the playoffs arrived, the Saints were rolling so strong in the “Wing-Z” that every game was a blowout all the way into the finals.

Paraclete put up a good battle on Friday, and in the end it was the famed sweep that brought home the hardware when Mayorga went around the left edge for a 33-yard touchdown run to break a 14-14 tie with less than a minute to play.

There’s no telling just where this magical ride will end. Zernickow now has two CIF championships. His program has become a conveyor belt of excellent teams that seemingly always make deep postseason runs.

What stared out as a move to stabilize a program in desperate need of stabilization has turned into one of the best runs in area football history. And San Dimas has nobody to thank more than Zernickow.